Robot revolution by 2020? Japan launches pro-robot campaign

Even in an age when serious talk of killer robots is reaching as high as the United Nations, there are counter arguments and enthusiasts: Japan has just set up an organization promoting robots, and it promises to transform the world.

The idea comes from a perceived need for such tech in various
private sector fields, claims the Robot Revolution Initiative,
which is joined by over 200 Japanese brands, including Toyota,
Honda and Panasonic, according to the Japan Times. A long list of
institutions is also on board.

Robots could offer extensive benefits in academia, agriculture,
medicine and other industries, including the disability sector.

Shinzo Abe’s government stands at the forefront of all this. The
prime minister, speaking at the inaugural meeting of the
Initiative on Friday, promised the world a robot revolution, with
Japan as its launchpad. Nothing sinister, though – Abe believes
robots are key to propelling the economy forward.

The idea could come to fruition as soon as 2020, with the PM
pledging to expand the size of the robot market from the current
600 billion Yen (approx. $5.34 billion) to some 2.4 trillion
(just over $20 billion).

To galvanize Japan’s economy further, last year Abe expressed a
wish to hold the first-ever robot Olympics in the land of the
rising sun in a matter of just five years.

Japan is, by popular opinion, the most robot-savvy nation, and
it’s no surprise. Since the 1950s, love for machines has engulfed
the nation and embedded itself firmly in the Japanese psyche.

And it wasn’t just vacuum cleaners either. Robots were beginning
to be imagined as companions as well.

According to the IO9 website, a survey conducted in 2007 revealed
that 40 percent of the nation’s women in their 20s and 30s
actually talk to their computers. Another 10 percent give them
names.

The nation is already crazy about robotic domestic pets, and one
Australia-based researcher predicts we’re going to get anything
from mechanical dogs to baby seals popping up within the next
10-15 years.

"Pet robotics has come a long way from the Tamagotchi craze
of the mid-90s. In Japan, people are becoming so attached to
their robot dogs they hold funerals for them when the circuits
die," Dr Jean-Loup Rault of the University of Melbourne
wrote in a paper published in the Frontiers in Veterinary Science
journal.

Technology permitting, it’s a sure bet the Japanese will embrace
the coming robot revolution.